We went to the Zoo this week which is an awesome time to practice all of the pet, farm and zoo signs!
Before going we watched
Leah's Farm and
Zoo Train and I prepared the Pet, Farm and Zoo flashcards from the
Classroom Edition.
Both of my kids started using animal signs (beyond the ones taught in Baby Signing Time) at about 18 months old. Every zoo and aquarium visit since that point has been very interesting. They use all of the signs they know to talk about what they see and when they see an animal that they don't know the sign for they use signs to share what they think the animal looks like. The best example I have of this is the first time we took my son to
Sea World at 18 months old. He saw an orca and signed "fish, boat" with a questioning expression on his face. He knew neither was the right sign but he didn't know the sign for "whale". He also tried to understand what seals are "fish, dog?" as they swim like a fish and bark like a dog!
Our zoo map holder was my 2 yr. old daughter. While her map reading skills are not great her animal picture reading skills are stellar! She did a great job of telling us which animals she wanted to visit.
When we reached the polar bear it was feeding time. The way this one kept putting his paws together as he "begged" for food it really looked like he was signing "more"!
One of our favorite things to see at the zoo are the turtles - both the sculpture and the real thing. Here both kids are trying to sign "turtle" while balancing on the shell.
Here are links to video clips for a couple of helpful videos to watch before you next zoo visit:
Leah's Farm
Zoo Train
You can download the videos to watch right away with the (free)
Kotoba & Sign Digital player!
The digital player is a real bargain because there is no shipping cost, the music files are included (in MP3 format) and it works with the
MOD Mobile app so you can watch Signing Time on your iOS devices!
